Doc Searls Weblog

The Net

• Verizon’s diabolical plan to turn the Web into pay-per-view. By Bill Snyder in Infoworld.
• What Happened At The Network Neutrality Oral Argument? Bigger, Snarkier and Uncut. By Harold Feld in Wetmachine. Also: The short version at Public Knowledge.

Surveillance

• Matthew Green’s post, which stirred up news of its own. Very useful, among other things, for its rundown of the story thus far (5 September at that writing, but by then all the biggest news was out).
• The NSA-Reform Paradox: Stop Domestic Spying, Get More Security. By Bruce Schneier in The Atlantic. Pull-quote: “The nation can survive the occasional terrorist attack, but our freedoms can’t survive an invulnerable leader like Keith Alexander operating within inadequate constraints.” Also by Bruce: The NSA is breaking most encryption on the Internet and NSA Surveillance: a guide to staying secure.
• Time to tame the NSA behemoth trampling our rights. By Yochai Benkler in The Guardian. Subhead: From leaks and Fisa court papers, it’s clear the NSA is a bloated spying bureaucracy out of control. It can’t be reformed by insiders.
• Google, Microsoft and Yahoo sue US government over surveillance requests. By Circa.
• Internet S.O.S. By Timothy Karr in FreePress.
• Security and Pervasive Monitoring. By the IETF (Internet Engineering Task Force).
• How NSA Revelations are Hurting Business. By Kashmir Hill in Forbes.
• Obama’s NSA surveillance review panel did not discuss changes, attendees say. Subhead: Pair say meeting was dominated by tech firms’ interests and session did not broach the topic of changes to data collection. By Spencer Ackerman in The Guardian.
• Obama’s James Clapper’s Committee To Make You Love the Dragnet Has a Kiddie Table. By (and in) EmptyWheel.
• Obama’s External Review Group on Surveillance Won’t Restore Public Trust. By Sascha Meinrath in Slate.

Tech

• Introducing the CloudOS. By Phil Windley.
• Input on the privacy and security implications of the Internet of Things. By Joni Brennan at Kantara.
• Trsst: a distributed secure blog platform for the open web. Successful $50k+ Kickstarter by Michael Powers.
• Apple is WAY ahead of the rest of the industry, but I’m sticking with Android. Here’s why. By Robert Scoble in TNW.
• My Telecoms Crystal Ball. By Martin Geddes.
• Let’s talk Bitcoin Episode 39. By @GamerAndy.

Markets & Marketing

• Theology in the Intention Economy (and also Stuff Too Big To Know). By Theoblogical.
• Marketing to Earn Respect. By Katherine Warman Kern in Comradity. Bonus link: A Better Marketplace.
• Big data, activity tracking, and the battle for the world’s top sports brand. By David Stern at CiteWorld.
• PageFair study on ad blocking. (.pdf) Overall rate: 22.7%.
• Is 50% of what big data knows about the consumer wrong? In The River. (Registration required.)
• Targeted Advertising Considered Harmful. By Don Marti.
• California’s “Do Not Track” Disclosure Bill, AB 370, is Not Law Yet. By Tanya Forsheit at Information Law Group.

Handbaskets to hell

• The Comprehensive Case Against Larry Summers. By Michael Hirsh in The Atlantic.
• DARPA’s Plan to Flood the Sea With Drones, Carrying More Drones. By Allen McDuffee in Wired.

What Dave’s saying

• How to Make Innovation Work in News Pull-quote: “Look for moments when the gates are down, when people have to get stuff done, there’s no time to object.”
• The govt should stay out of journalism. Pull-quote: “We have a highly dysfunctional press, exemplified by reporters who want to debate the character of the leakers, instead of exploring what was revealed by the leaks. In such a world, we should be trying to expand the realm of people empowered to inform us about what our elected representatives are doing with the power we invest in them. Keep them on their toes and looking over their shoulders. Put a little of the fear they put in us in them. Imho if the government says who’s a journalist, under penalty of law, then there will be no journalism.”
• Learning from Bill. Also: the podcast.
• Riptide, The Times Programmers and the Un-Shorenstein.
• Two ways of looking at an outline. You’re looking at one now, composed in and published from Fargo.

Other interesting stuff

• Bloomberg Best and Worst (just fun to peruse)
• Um, no hurricanes. By Bryan Walsh in Time.
• How Tesla Changes Radio. By Eric Rhoads.
• Planes landing at Hong Kong’s old airport. Amazing there weren’t more accidents.